Scattered Thoughts . . .

I did a little bit more research and testing of the custom spectroheliograph I am building yesterday.  This time I actually captured a single frame of data of one spectral line.  Honestly, I can't even remember which line this was...  Hydrogen alpha?  Sodium?  Continuum?  I honestly don't remember and I suppose it does not matter.  I just wanted to make a little more progress in this project. This image is just one still image of a spectral line captured without the use of a telescope of any sort.  I simply had the spectroheliograph pointed out our living room window.  My purpose was simply to see what a captured image would look like.  For collecting data to compile an actual image of the current sun, I would need to be connected to a telescope and then capture video...  from one end of the spectral line scanning toward and beyond the opposite end of the spectral line.  It would be a completely different process. One thing I did noticed in this image is that either my focus w

L ittle by little, I've been working on building a custom homebuilt, non-commercial spectroheliograph for solar astronomy.  A spectroheliograph is a scientific instrument used for imaging/graphing the sun in one specific wavelength at a time.  It is not an instrument for visual observations though.  It is used to capture any single wavelength between 400-700nm at a very narrow 3 angstroms (0.3nm) in graphical waveform.  Then specialized software is used to transpose that waveform into an image.   This particular spectroheliograph was designed by Christian Buil in France.  He kept this particular design small and relatively simple for do-it-yourself amateur astronomers such as myself.  I believe he also has spectroheliograph designs that are research-grade and costing tens of thousands of dollars.  I opted for the dirt-cheap do-it-yourself and a-little-more-difficult route to build what is considered a beginner spectroheliograph.  It is still a scientific instrument but, in order to